Wednesday, December 30

We have NEVER been cat people…more like English Bulldog people, but never cat people. That is until Jonas and Jewel came along and decided they WERE cat people. For our kids sake we opened up our minds and our hearts and we tried to accept cats as even an option. There was a garage cat named George that we thought was pretty darn cool, and then when we came across an abandoned kitty at a campground in Michigan it tore at our hearts enough to bring him with us in the RV. We all fell instantly in love with Tinker, although Joey still had his reservations. He liked her, but did not like the litter box. She wasn’t meant to be an RV cat though, as she liked to be outside too much and after six months we eventually lost her. It was incredibly hard on the kids and I and still, three years later, we miss her. Really, miss her.

Our English Bulldog was never a good traveling dog either, as he’d get motion sickness, so my Grama adopted him and lived happily with her the rest of their lives (he died a week after she did).

We’ve not had much of a desire to replace either of them while we’re still living on the road, but we have missed having pets around. So when we moved into this house and started have cat visitors daily it was a HUGE treat. They kind of trickle in slowly, some decide to stay, some move on, and it’s always exciting around here when a new one shows up! You’d think Polar Bears just showed up.

Stuffles has been here I think the longest, and she is, by far, my favorite. She’s here, rain, snow or sleet, and usually can be found just like this, on the back porch staring in the glass slider door. It didn’t take long for Lucy to realize we had a sweet pad for them (heated enclosed dog house with bedding), so she’s almost always here too.

Lucy is jewel’s favorite. Lucy always has this same stare. Lucy kinda freaks me out a little.

Jewel especially loves these cats. It’s surprising to me to have these feral cats, this people friendly. These two are, at least. The others just use us for food, but Lucy and Stuffles come for the rubs, too.

Our landlord asked us to not have any indoor pets, and Joey does his best to keep them out.

It’s not easy, but I know we won’t be here forever so I’m trying not to get too attached, and we are definitely not wanting them to get dependent on us. We are ALL enjoying them while we can! :)

Sunday, December 27

For the last year I’d been wanting to preserve this here blog on paper, and now I finally did it! With the help of Blurb.com I was able to compile together a coffee table book which I had sent to my Mom for her Christmas present. It seems every year my brother and I have this “competition” on who could get Mom to cry on Christmas, and according to him…I won! (And that I need to stop talking about it already!) But since I’m all about preservation I also have to post her reaction:

I won't go into "present" details, but I must tell you what Vicki presented us with. She managed to compiled - edit - arrange her entire Blog (which amounts to a day to day - month to month) chronology of their life and travels - - words and pictures - - 248 pages and had it bound (hard bound) and published! It has a full color jacket and forward on the inside cover. This is the beginning of a great family history to pass down. This is only from Spring 2006 through Winter 2009..........but wow! Sooooo artfully done. A true labor of love. …..… I may have to order more copies! I was so surprised to learn that she arranged everything - - did all the editing - - formatting - - compositions - - every detail her's - - - all Blurb did was publish it for her. W O W ! Great job Vicki!

It’s available online for review if you’d like to check it out! Click Here I had so much fun doing this book, that I thought I would offer my services to anyone else that might like theirs done. Then Joey reminded me how they didn’t see me the entire time I was working on it, so maybe it was more involved than I had thought, so maybe I’ll just try to focus on getting our Early Years put together. I better hurry though, before we move on to the next chapter already!

Monday, December 21

We moved into the house two months ago. At first I almost said we pulled in, but we did leave the bus outside, and since we completely emptied the bus, I have to admit we moved in. That was a hard concept for me to swallow at first, but I did quickly adapt. The last time we pulled off the road was when we were pregnant with Jewel and couldn't imagine bringing a third kid into our small twenty three foot motorhome. When we had originally gotten on the road almost three years prior to that we told ourselves we'd settle back down when we find the right place to raise our young family. Iowa seemed the perfect fit.....until winter hit and we all piled back into the motorhome to head south for warmth. Making us a part time on the road family, but still partially on the road.

The last time we pulled off the road we bought a house and then put all our energies and finances towards improving it & furnishing it. This time is waayyy different! The ONLY thing I've bought for it is one bar stool. We're making due with only items from the bus along with lawn furniture, and we've been quite content. In fact, I've enjoyed living in a house. Joey hasn't been working all that much, but enough, and it's allowed us plenty of time to talk out our situation. The first thing we decided was to GET RID of everything and START OVER. Joey's accident left him more than just physically scarred. Before the accident he was in a work-make money mode, but like most life threatening events, it changed him. Moving into the house allowed us to step outside of our current life and see things from a new perspective. We always knew this but we admitted it to ourselves: we still had too much stuff for our comfort. Too much stuff that was either too high a monthly payment, too big, too hard to drive, too much, too unuseful, too much of a hassle, all requiring him to work more.

Having all this time to think and talk out our options wasn't as easy as it sounds either. It's hard when you have endless options! By getting rid of everything and starting all over from scratch, we can do anything. Including, work less. Our first thought, naturally for us, was to move to Hawaii. That plan lasted a while until we really hashed it out & determined that would limit our travel, and well.....no one is ready for that. Jake wants to go to Italy, Jonas to France and I still want to travel Australia in a VW Bus, so settling down on an island won't work just yet. We then started looking at travel trailers and fifth wheels and just never really got that THIS IS IT feeling we were looking for. Then one day as Joey's cruising eBay he found another Bluebird Bus. Get rid of one Bluebird, for another, smaller even, Bluebird? Someone lost it. Then I started seeing the possibilities...and we BOUGHT IT! It's newer than our old green bus, and is set up as an RV/car hauler. Front half is a new modern RV with 3 bunks, couch, shower & sink, and the back half is an open air car hauler with attachable canvas cover, which I plan to turn into a screened in porch, complete with hammocks and a wet bar. Sounds fun, but we haven't actually taken possession of the bus yet so until we physically have it we can only guess what we want to do with it.

It was weird, after deciding to get rid of the green bus, for the first time in my life I felt homeless! Then I thought of the millions of people that rent houses and have no motorhome, and I realized our situation wasn't as scary as I thought. I actually embraced it. We could live in any house we wanted! We can have the bus and still rent houses when we want, like when we're on a job. Endless possibilities!

Right now we're just waiting to get our bus, take a couple weeks to set it up how we like and then we're getting back on the road for a couple months until the pipelines call the welders back. So we play the waiting game a little longer, but just enough time to work out all the details. Fun things are a happening!!

Tuesday, December 15

Monday, December 14

Once I got broadband internet from Verizon I thought my days of sitting in the truck hunting down wi-fi were over, but in an effort to not go over my monthly limit I find myself in the library parking lot uploading a huge file. While I have an hour to kill I read blogs, email, twitter and facebook on my new Droid cell phone so I figured I may as well round off the list with blogging from it!

Monday, December 7

It’s snowing again, and we’re waiting for a blizzard. This wouldn’t be so bad if we were properly prepared. Winter’s hitting us fast and hard, and I was still living in Summerland. The kids outgrew every snow boot and snow jacket, and have long since tied the scarves together to tie each other up with leashes and collars. Jewel has mud boots she trenches in while playing tag with the cats, but other than that we just stare out at the snow wondering what the heck we’re doing back in cold country for the winter.

I let Jonas wear my favorite suede boots out in the snow last time and when I peeked out the window I saw him heading into the unfrozen silty muddy sticky pond. I was helpless to stop him from getting stuck and then pulling his socked foot out to step in the mud to then put it back inside my fuzzy soft furry boot. I would have cried if I weren’t laughing so hard. Watching, knowing exactly what was going to happen, yelling inside while jumping up and down, frantically waving my hands……….. with him in JonasLand.

Today he went out in deck shoes, no socks, and shorts…says he’s immune to extreme heat and cold. At least he went nowhere near the ponds.

Tuesday, December 1

On the very day my friend Lara and her kids were coming to visit Joey wanted me to see The House. I didn’t want a house, but I went and looked at The House….. The next day Lara and kids helped us move into The House.

The kids were beyond thrilled, they each got their own room. Joey was happy, he got the space and comfort he was craving. I got 2000 sq. ft. of floors to vacuum and mop, three toilets to clean, and four bathroom sinks to scrub toothpaste out of. Of course, it made me happy to see everyone else so happy so I eventually came to appreciate The House, but what I love more than anything are the views we get from practically every window and door.

This is the front window and where we regularly watch the sunrise…which is something new for me but this House has turned me into a morning person. Even the kids have switched from Up All Night, Sleep All Day to normal people hours.

Most of my days are spent in the kitchen with my views out the back. (This cat hung out on our porch for a couple weeks but then we never saw him again.) Jewel named him Stuffles.

We have a couple small ponds on the property where the kids fish for crawdads.

With homemade poles.

That’s a stick, some pretty yarn and some cheese. Forget the dozen professionally built poles we have, they don’t have purple and pink yarn.

It looks like we’ll be staying put for a little while while we figure out our next move.

With views like these, that are constantly changing with the sun and clouds, I think we can hang like this for……..at least three months.